Every New York City borough but Staten Island now has police units called quality-of-life teams, a rapidly expanding program meant to crack down on nuisances like loud music, motorized scooters on sidewalks and double-parked cars.

On Monday, Mayor Eric Adams and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch stood in front of a playground in Astoria, Queens, where they said the teams would now be patrolling the borough.

It was the second announcement in a week about the growth of the teams, which began in April as a pilot program before spreading into every precinct in Manhattan, the Bronx and Brooklyn. And next Monday, the teams will be rolled out in every precinct on Staten Island, the police said.

“If you can’t have an abandoned vehicle in front of Gracie Mansion, you should not have it in front of someone’s home here in Astoria,” Mr. Adams said. “Every New Yorker deserves to live in a neighborhood that is safe from gun violence, has clean streets and is free from illegal activities.”

The program championed by the mayor and commissioner has drawn praise from some City Council members and tenant groups who say the city is addressing low-level offenses that rarely make headlines, but create a sense of chaos and dysfunction. But organizations that represent public defenders and push to protect civil liberties remain wary, fearing the units will target residents of color and send people to jail for minor offenses.

The teams’ expansion will lead “to more unnecessary arrests and prolonged detentions of New Yorkers for low-level violations and misdemeanors,” Meghna Philip, director of the special litigation unit at the Legal Aid Society, said. “This expanded surveillance and criminalization does not increase the safety or well-being of the people and communities we serve.”

Michael Sisitzky, assistant policy director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said the organization has not received complaints about the teams.

But he said the program’s aim — to send police to deal with problems like illegal vending, outdoor drug use and homeless encampments — recalls the goal of so-called broken windows policing. That theory from the 1980s held that policing minor crimes like fare beating or vandalism would lead to a reduction in major crimes. It resulted in disproportionate targeting of Black and Latino men, civil libertarians say.

Mr. Sisitzky said the Police Department should release a complete breakdown of the summons and arrests the teams have made so far to engender trust.

“Our concern is over the way these teams can be used to target and harm already marginalized communities,” Mr. Sisitzky said. “And that’s where we need more oversight and more data.”

Commissioner Tisch has rebutted the criticism, saying the program “isn’t about cracking down to prevent crime.”

At the news conference on Monday, she addressed it again, saying that the units, known as the Q teams, have been misrepresented as “a return to zero-tolerance policing.”

“That is a fundamental mischaracterization of what we’re doing here,” she said. The program “is about restoring present order. That means responding to the problems people are actually living with and making sure that they get fixed.”

The teams respond to reports made through the city’s 311 system, a complaint hotline for nonemergencies, as well as other low-level complaints in their precincts. The officers have received specialized training to respond to problems in their precincts, are supervised by a sergeant and are guided by the precinct’s commanding officers.

The department said the teams have responded to more than 31,500 calls.

Since the teams were deployed, they have towed more than 700 abandoned or illegally parked cars and seized more than 300 illegal e-bikes, scooters, and mopeds. Response times to the 311 system have also dropped by an average of 47 minutes, according to the police.

Kimberly Elliott, president of the tenants’ association at Astoria Houses, a New York City Housing Authority development, said that before the teams were deployed, it was beginning to feel as if no one cared.

“Imagine coming home and finding a strange car parked in your driveway or worse, being blocked in and unable to leave for work or pick up your children,” she said during the news conference on Monday, where she stood with the mayor and the commissioner. “This is not just frustrating, it’s disrespectful. I’ve lost sleep because of loud noises from my window.”

The teams, she said, are “exactly what our neighborhood needs.”

But the Rev. Kevin McCall, an activist in Brooklyn, said he has gotten complaints from residents that the police have broken up barbecues and block parties, in some cases throwing away food.

“Their response to quality-of-life complaints is harassment,” he said.

Julie Sharpton, head of the residents’ association at Walt Whitman Houses in Brooklyn, said that so far, residents in her Housing Authority development have worked well with the teams. Residents in her complex said they are tired of public urination and people sleeping in the hallways.

“We wholeheartedly embrace this,” said Ms. Sharpton, who stood with Mayor Adams when the city announced the expansion into Brooklyn. “We have a stronger police presence, but we don’t feel like we’re being occupied or targeted or profiled.”